DIXON, Ill. - The small-town bookkeeper dazzled friends and co-workers with invitations to her immaculate horse ranch and home, where she displayed trophies hauled back from world championship exhibitions and visitors in cowboy hats arrived to buy some of the best-bred horses in the nation.
“She has a trophy case that you wouldn’t believe - actually a room,’’ said Stephanie Terranova, who worked with Rita Crundwell for 15 years at City Hall and attended her parties and auctions. “You wouldn’t believe the different people that came. We don’t have a lot of that type of thing around here. . . . Cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and Southern drawls.’’
The gulf between Crundwell’s two worlds was breathtaking, and her
colleagues and neighbors never guessed how the two entwined: Crundwell
is accused of using her modestly paid town hall job to steal their tax
dollars, support an extravagant lifestyle, and win national fame as a
breeder.
Bankers stole trillions.
In a criminal complaint, they say they have obtained bank records that document each step she took in shifting taxes and other public funds through four city bank accounts before hiding them in a fifth account no one else knew about. Still, they are trying to figure out how she kept the scheme a secret, even from outside auditors, for at least six years. It unraveled only when a co-worker filling in for Crundwell while she was on an extended vacation stumbled upon the secret bank account.
Crundwell had an encyclopedic knowledge of city business down to which drawer contained a particular document, said Mayor James Burke, who recalled feeling uneasy about the city comptroller’s growing wealth.
“There wasn’t anything to hang my hat on,’’ said Burke, who has known Crundwell since she was a teenager. “Rita, she is a very, very smart person. I mean she is almost brilliant.’’
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